Sgt. Hunter Foster, the Mississippi police officer who fatally shot 1-year-old Kohen Wiley during a June 14 encounter in a Senatobia Walmart parking lot, has resigned from the Senatobia Police Department. Senatobia Mayor Greg Graves confirmed the resignation to The Associated Press on Friday, October 23, 2026, one day after the state publicly released body-camera footage of the shooting that has drawn national attention and calls for a federal investigation.
What the newly released video shows
The Mississippi Department of Public Safety released redacted body-camera and surveillance videos on October 22, along with a heavily redacted Mississippi Bureau of Investigation incident report. The footage shows five Senatobia police officers inside a Walmart security room when a store employee alerts them that two people are running. Officers rush out with guns drawn toward a gray Ford Fusion sedan in the parking lot.
The car begins moving as officers order the driver to stop. It reverses into a parked vehicle, pauses, then accelerates forward and turns left. Video appears to show Foster placing a hand on the hood as he jumps out of the way, then firing into the vehicle — three shots, all from Foster’s weapon — shattering the right front passenger window. One-year-old Kohen was sitting on his mother’s lap in the front passenger seat. The boy was later pronounced dead at a local hospital, and the driver was airlifted to another hospital with critical injuries.
Resignation after a clearance
The resignation lands just days after the Mississippi Attorney General’s office announced on October 19 that its monthslong review found Foster’s use of force justified and that he would not face criminal charges. The city had placed Foster on leave on June 16, two days after the shooting. The Senatobia board of aldermen accepted his resignation on October 21, and it took effect immediately, according to the Commercial Appeal.
Foster’s attorney, Martin Zummach, has maintained that the officer had “no choice” but to fire because the vehicle was moving toward him, and he declined to comment when reached Friday.
Family and community reaction
Kohen’s family disputes the official account. His mother, Vellesiya Wiley, denies that the driver moved toward the officers, and she has denied the underlying shoplifting allegation — suspected theft of diapers — that drew officers to the scene. Neither woman has been charged, according to state and county court records cited by AP.
Civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Van Turner, who represent the family, say the footage shows the fatal shot came from the side of the car, contradicting claims that Foster faced imminent danger. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family reached the same conclusion. “Five officers with guns drawn at a car with two women and a baby. There’s no justification for that,” said Kohen’s grandmother, Veronica Roberson, at an October 22 news conference. The family’s legal team is seeking a federal investigation, and Turner has called for Foster to be de-certified so he cannot join another police department. Kohen would have celebrated his second birthday on November 1.
Watch: Officer Resigns After His Body Cam Footage Is Released In The Kohen Wiley Case — a video report on Hunter Foster’s resignation and the newly released body-camera footage of the fatal June shooting.
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Movement Proposition (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0
The case now sits at an uneasy intersection: a state clearance on paper, a grieving family’s demand for federal scrutiny, and a resignation that ends Foster’s tenure in Senatobia without ending the questions about the deadly few seconds in that parking lot.